Troops To Fly To East In Experiment

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32072, 21 August 1969, Page 22

Troops To Fly To East In Experiment

(N.Z.P.A. Staff Correspondent)

LONDON, August 20.

Britain will dispatch more than 100 servicemen to Malaysia tomorrow to see what effect rapid air travel will have on soldiers flown out in emergency operations.

They will spend six weeks in the jungles of North Perak, Malaysia. A Ministry of Defence spokesman said today thait British defence policy was now directed towards the maintenance of highly mobile forces which, while stationed in Europe and trained for operational roles within N.A.T.O. would still be able to work effectively outside Europe as required. The North Perak mission is part of a programme aimed at finding out what, if any, loss of efficiency there will be from men thrust into

active service in a climate greatly different from that at home. For two weeks the party has been subjected to a round-the-clock check on such tilings as temperature, respiration rate, and heartbeat, both in simulated operational situations and during free time. The results will be compared with those obtained daily during the six weeks in the jungle, where local time is 64 hours ahead of British standard time. The joint-service party will be led by Lieutenant-Colonel J. Adam, Royal Army Medical Corps, who went to the South Pole with Sir Vivian Fuchs in 1958. It will include three Royal Air Force officers and a flight sergeant, three experts from the Medical Research Council, 100 men from the Army’s 22nd Special Air Service Regiment, and one woman—a civilian psychologist from the military hospital at Netley, Southampton.